Judge Pushes Back on SAD Scheme Sealing Requests
A signature feature of SAD Scheme cases is that rightsowners typically try to seal defendants’ identities. The sealing helps rightsowners in several ways, including preserving their ability to proceed without defendant involvement, springing account and cash freezes on defendants to…
Roblox Sanctioned for SAD Scheme Abuse–Roblox v. Schedule A Defendants
TIL: Roblox regularly uses the SAD Scheme. I found at least 19 cases. In the lawsuit I’m covering today, Roblox named over 250 defendants. If that’s true with the other 18 cases, Roblox may have sued 4,000+ defendants using the…
Amazon May Be Liable for Merchant’s Spycam–M.S. v. Amazon
This case involves an “embedded pinhole camera” “disguised” as a “mountable hook” that a Doe merchant offered in Amazon’s Marketplace. Allegedly, Amazon inspected the item three times: Amazon’s Product Safety Team inspected it to confirm it couldn’t be used to…
Section 230 Applies to Doxxing TikTok Video–Couture v. Noshirvan
The court summarizes the plaintiffs’ allegations: Defendant [Danesh] Noshirvan is a TikTok creator. He makes money through TikTok gifts, tips, and subscription fees. His niche is cancel culture. Noshirvan finds a video of someone messing up. He then edits and…
Anti-TikTok Political Stunts Fail in Montana and Indiana Courts
Introduction It’s become a popular political sport to attack TikTok. Those attacks combine Sinophobia with anti-Big Tech sentiments, a double-whammy of political payoffs that’s addictive to politicians. Most anti-TikTok regulatory efforts are just political theater, intended to entertain voters without…
512(f) Doesn’t Restrict Competitive Gaming of Search Results–Source Capital v. Barrett Financial
This case involves two “hard money lending” competitors, Source Capital and Barrett. Allegedly on behalf of Barrett, an SEO vendor sent DMCA takedown notices to Google, alleging that Source Capital had copied some of Barrett’s copyrighted material. Source Capital alleges…
Now Available: the Published Version of My SAD Scheme Article
I’m pleased to share the final published version of my article, “A SAD Scheme of Abusive Intellectual Property Litigation.” The article explains how IP rightsowners are twisting the rule of law to obtain ex parte TROs that prompt online marketplaces…
Evaluating the Constitutionality of Viewpoint-Neutral Trademark Registration Laws That Do Not Restrict Speech—Vidal v. Elster (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law The Supreme Court will likely hold in Elster that Section 2(c) is consistent with the First Amendment, but will it clarify how to balance trademark…
Facebook’s LLaMa Defeats Copyright Claims–Kadrey v. Meta
This is another preliminary ruling in the copyright battle over generative AI. The stakes of this battle couldn’t be higher. Copyright law has the capacity to nix the entire generative AI category. Fortunately, Judge Chhabria easily rejects the copyright owners’…
Another Jawboning Case Fails in the 9th Circuit (But a TAFS Judge Doesn’t Like the Biden Administration)–Rogalinksi v. Meta
[I’m far behind in my blogging queue, especially with respect to the social media addiction rulings.] I previously summarized this case: Rogalinski made several posts about COVID. Facebook added “missing context” labels to two of them and removed another one….